Arabic version: هيئة مكافحة الفساد تستمع إلى مكالمات بشأن دعم شقيق بيروتيه

According to ABC News, phone taps played to a NSW corruption inquiry showed fugitive property developer Jean Nassif offered support for the Liberal preselection of a brother of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet. The Independent Commission Against Corruption is investigating whether people linked to the NSW Liberal Party solicited funds from prohibited donors and other sources to advance the interests of the right-wing NSW Reformers faction.

A June 2021 recorded call between Mr Nassif and Reformers member Jean-Claude Perrottet was played at the inquiry. Mr Perrottet told the commission Mr Nassif became his client while he was working at Medallion Finance. In the recording, Mr Nassif suggested $100,000 could go to one of the Perrottet brothers seeking preselection, or be channelled through Liberal figures Jeremy Greenwood and Christian Ellis. Asked which brother was being discussed, Mr Perrottet said he did not know what Mr Nassif was talking about and that it made no sense.

Counsel assisting the commission, Juliet Curtin, argued the call showed Reformers members were seeking financial backing for factional activities and Mr Nassif was offering to contribute. Mr Perrottet rejected that characterisation. In another recording, he told Mr Nassif that help in Castle Hill and Baulkham Hills “would be awesome” and thanked him for support of the family. Mr Perrottet later described his comment that the support was “making a difference” as a throwaway remark.

The inquiry also examined text messages between Mr Perrottet and Mr Ellis about the first of what became regular $5,000 payments to Mr Perrottet. The commission heard he received monthly payments from Beckington, a company with contracts involving Catholic Schools NSW and hotelier Michael O’Hara, for work Mr Perrottet said he could not remember doing. Dominic Perrottet, who referred the allegations to ICAC in 2022, is not accused of wrongdoing.